Re: [gNewSense-users] Re: free is not sufficient

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

On Tuesday 14 November 2006 18:32, James Buchanan wrote:
> It's an interesting point: is this distribution supposed to contain only
> Free software, or is it supposed to force its users into using only free
> software? I think it's the distinction between the American revolution and
> the French revolution; becoming too radical can be a major problem.
>
> Shall we excise Wine? It's free software, but it's free software that
> might, possibly, allow the user to use non-free software (of course, they
> might be wanting to use a Windows-only bit of Free software; it's not
> inconcievable, especially when it comes to gaming).
>
> Let's, hypothetically, say we developed a fork of Wine that only allowed
> Free software to be run (never mind the impracticality of that). That would
> violate software freedom zero, that the user be allowed to run his software
> as he will. Ironically, freedom to run an interact with non-free software
> is essential to the freedom of software.
>
> I think that freedom is sufficient--that any Free package ought to be
> included in the repositories, so far as is practical. It is not for us to
> decide how the user runs his system; that would make the system non-Free.
> Merely provide a high-quality, cohesive system comprising solely Free
> software, and if the user wants to hang himself on slavery's chains, let
> him.
>
> JB

-- 


Whatever the decision on this, your description of a Wine fork would not be a 
violation of freedom 0.  Users would have access to the source and could 
adapt it however they wish.

There is no compulsion in the GPL to supply code that does anything in 
particular



------------
Andrew



Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com